RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The sounds of trum­pets, march­ing boots and cheer­ing chil­dren echoed through Siparia yes­ter­day, as thou­sands of res­i­dents turned out to cel­e­brate the bor­ough’s third an­niver­sary with a colour­ful mil­i­tary pa­rade and a re­newed call for uni­ty and de­vel­op­ment.

Un­der sun­ny skies, res­i­dents lined High Street and gath­ered at Ir­win Park as mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, Po­lice Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice, Coast Guard, Scouts, Girl Guides and oth­er pro­tec­tive ser­vices marched through the bor­ough.

One of the biggest at­trac­tions was the TTPS Mount­ed Branch. Chil­dren crowd­ed around the hors­es, ea­ger­ly pos­ing for pho­tographs and speak­ing with of­fi­cers be­fore the pa­rade be­gan.

Lead­ing the cel­e­bra­tions was Siparia’s first may­or, Dood­nath Mayrhoo, who de­scribed the large turnout as proof that res­i­dents were em­brac­ing the bor­ough’s growth and look­ing for­ward to its fu­ture.

“There are many ini­tia­tives that are go­ing to come in the com­ing years that we will de­vel­op to make sure our burgess­es ben­e­fit,” Mayrhoo said. “This is tes­ti­mo­ny to the fact that we are do­ing things to make sure our burgess­es come out and part­ner with us.”

The may­or said the mil­i­tary pa­rade was not on­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of Siparia’s progress but al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty forces at a time when pub­lic con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment is be­ing test­ed.

“This is what we need to bring back con­fi­dence in the po­lice ser­vice, when we can show­case the tal­ent of our se­cu­ri­ty forces,” he said. “We want cit­i­zens to work with the po­lice to al­le­vi­ate crime.”

Mayrhoo al­so high­light­ed on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment plans, in­clud­ing the re­fur­bish­ment of the Ir­win Park Sport­ing Com­plex. He said work had al­ready be­gun, with un­suit­able soil re­moved and re­placed as part of ef­forts to up­grade the fa­cil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged that fi­nan­cial con­straints con­tin­ue to af­fect sev­er­al projects.

“We have to work with the lit­tle we have,” he said. “We hope that peo­ple will be pa­tient. As our Prime Min­is­ter said, bet­ter days are com­ing.”

He al­so an­nounced that a ma­jor J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion will take place on June 20 af­ter con­cerns sur­round­ing the event were re­solved.

Res­i­dents at­tend­ing the cel­e­bra­tions said they hoped the bor­ough would con­tin­ue to grow. Lyn­don Alexan­der called for “peace and love and uni­ty,” while Deb­o­rah Var­gas Gue­vara said she want­ed greater em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and a safer com­mu­ni­ty.

“I want peace in this bor­ough of Siparia,” she said. “It was very nice, very en­tic­ing.”

Po­lit­i­cal boy­cott

clouds cel­e­bra­tions

De­spite the fes­tive at­mos­phere, the cel­e­bra­tions were marked by a po­lit­i­cal boy­cott.

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cil­lors Christo­pher Max Enchi­nas and Ronald Prince stayed away from the of­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny and mil­i­tary pa­rade salute, cit­ing con­cerns about fund­ing for de­vel­op­ment projects in the bor­ough.

Their ab­sence con­trast­ed with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of oth­er PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives, in­clud­ing coun­cil­lor Jil­lon Lewis and coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali, who crossed the floor from the UNC to the PNM, both of whom joined Mayrhoo and res­i­dents in the cel­e­bra­tions.

Speak­ing af­ter the event, Roberts claimed that coun­cil­lors had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­proved $1.2 mil­lion for re­fur­bish­ment works at Ir­win Park and $80,000 for up­grades to the ad­join­ing play­ground, on­ly to be in­formed lat­er that the funds had been with­drawn.

He al­leged the mon­ey was redi­rect­ed to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces (NPUPS) and called on the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion to in­ves­ti­gate.

Roberts al­so crit­i­cised de­lays in up­grad­ing Ir­win Park, say­ing the fa­cil­i­ty should re­flect the achieve­ments of ath­letes from the area, in­clud­ing Siparia’s na­tion­al 400-me­tre bronze medal­list.

Re­spond­ing to Roberts’ al­le­ga­tions, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen re­ject­ed claims that Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions were be­ing forced to use their own bud­gets to pay NPUPS work­ers.

“The claim that Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions are re­quired to pay work­ers on the NPUPS is a lie that the PNM has been ped­dling,” Ameen said.

She ex­plained that the pro­gramme is fund­ed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance and ad­min­is­tered through her min­istry, which di­rect­ly pays the 1,684 work­ers em­ployed un­der the ini­tia­tive.

“Not a sin­gle cor­po­ra­tion has been or will be re­quired to pay work­ers of the NPUPS,” she said.

Ameen al­so dis­missed con­cerns about the boy­cott, say­ing the Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions were a suc­cess and sug­gest­ing that the ab­sence of some elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives went large­ly un­no­ticed.

Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions will con­tin­ue through­out June with cul­tur­al, recre­ation­al and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties planned across Siparia.